Silencing the voice of reason is detrimental to peace and law and order in the country. But it unfortunately happens in our great country. The issue has come once again to light when the defence lawyer Shahid Azmi was gunned down at his office in suburban Kurla on February.
Shahid was defending in courts of law some accused of 7/11 blasts, 2006 Malegaon Blast 2008, and especially an accused Fahim Ansari, charged of assisting 26/11 perpetrators. He was nephew of Samajwadi Party leader and Govandi MLA Abu Asim Azmi.
With the reports appearing in the newspapers it can be safely said that the assassination was pre-planned and well-managed. Sahid had threats. So in 2006 he filed a complaint at the Kurla Police station against regional Ravi Pujari gang that had threatened him for dire consequences if not taken his step back. Despite the continuous threatening calls and his repeated complaints, the lawyer was not provided with proper security. The lackadaisical attitude of administration and security forces made the lawyer easy prey for the goons.
He was a student of class X in Mumbai when picked up by the police on charges of plotting to assassin Jammu & Kashmir leader Farooq Abdullah. He was charged under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA), and was awarded five-year sentence in 1999, but was acquitted by the Supreme Court. He did his senior secondary through distance education when he was confined in Tihar jail. In jail between1992-1999, he enrolled for a post-graduate course and after acquittal by the Apex Court, he studied law before starting legal practice.
The aim of doing law was to help the oppressed people and thereby strive against the atrocities and injustice. He became a famous lawyer in a very short span of time and was always ready to help the Muslims in need. He got nominal fee from his clients. He successfully argued the TADA and POTA cases in the court and got a number of innocent youths acquitted. He emerged as the hope of the oppressed people, especially Muslims. He was killed because he was fighting for the rights of Muslims. Shahid worked selflessly, tirelessly for the cause of oppressed Muslims. He was polite, intelligent and a brave advocate.
Mumbai Police claim to have nabbed some of the perpetrators who pumped the bullet at the lawyer and who were co-accused in the assassination. But the gang they indicate has been reportedly proclaimed to be close to our Intelligence Services. Hence a big conspiracy behind the whole episode cannot be denied.
It is an irony that in our country, boys are picked up for or without a fault and are charged under some Sections and Articles of the Constitution. But when a person (lawyer) comes to defend them, he is gunned downed.
This was not the first case of this nature that has come to light. Earlier Kishore Sutrale, a well known criminal lawyer was done to death in February 1999 by some gunmen of a local gang. Liyakat Ali Shaikh was also a criminal lawyer, murdered outside Goregaon station in November 1998. What does this mean?
But isn’t an act of terror to barge into one’s office in the evening and fire several rounds of bullets to a man and speed away without any hue and cry?
We have been fighting against terrorism for decades. But we should take terrorism in its face value viz. we should fight against terrorism of every form and hue. Only then we will be able to tackle the problem in the real sense.
A well-known defence lawyer has been assassinated and no adequate breakthrough has been done so far by the security forces and Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS). After a couple of months the issue will go down and people will start forgetting it. But the unanswered question will continue to haunt peace- and justice-loving minds, “Who will come forward to defend the innocents languishing in jails?”